Free Wave Technologies, Inc. designs and manufactures secure machine-to-machine wireless networking, communications, and computing systems. Their radios can capture and transmit data from devices such as sensors, gauges, valves, robots, drones, and unmanned vehicles over long distances (60+ miles / 96+ kilometers) in clear line-of-sight environments and harsh environments. Free Wave's radios support a variety of industrial applications, such as

supervisory control and data acquisition Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) is a control system architecture comprising computers, networked data communications and graphical user interfaces for high-level supervision of machines and processes. It also covers sensors and o ...

(SCADA), wireless I/O,

cathodic protection Cathodic protection (CP; ) is a technique used to control the corrosion of a metal surface by making it the cathode of an electrochemical cell. A simple method of protection connects the metal to be protected to a more easily corroded "sacrific ...

(CP), remote monitoring,

telemetry Telemetry is the in situ data collection, collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic data transmission, transmission to receiving equipment (telecommunication) for monitoring. The word is derived from the Gr ...

, and

analytics Analytics is the systematic computational analysis of data or statistics. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It also entails applying data patterns toward effective decision-making. It ...

. Free Wave can provide long range, reliable and rugged wireless data links through both licensed and license-free radios. The Company sells to a variety of enterprises such as energy, utilities, agricultural, government, defence, water, wastewater, manufacturing, and commercial enterprises. The company also conducts network designs, path studies, and pre-installation engineering services to support its customers.

History

Free Wave Technologies was founded in August 1993, by Jonathan Sawyer and Steve Wulchin. From the beginning, Sawyer and Wulchin aimed to help customers transmit mission-critical data via secure, highly reliable, licensed, and license-free spread spectrum radios. Free Wave has manufactured all of its radios in Boulder, Colorado since the first radio was shipped in 1994. In June 2007, TA Associates led a $113 million investment in Free Wave Technologies. The company's major markets are oil & gas, government, and defence,

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

water Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...

and wastewater, and

manufacturing Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a r ...

industries since that time. Today, Free Wave Technologies has more than 800,000 industrial radios and embedded modules in the field.

Uses

FreeWave's wireless M2M solutions are deployed across many industries including oil and gas, government, precision agriculture, traffic systems, water/wastewater, manufacturing, and other utilities. For instance, FreeWave radios are used by energy companies to maximize production and reduce operating costs for mission-critical applications within the military, and for environmental monitoring to provide warning of impending natural disasters such as volcanoes. The Institute of Geophysics of Ecuador uses FreeWave technology at

Tungurahua Tungurahua (; from Quichua ''tunguri'' (throat) and ''rahua'' (fire), "Throat of Fire")) is an active stratovolcano located in the Cordillera Oriental of Ecuador. The volcano gives its name to the province of Tungurahua. Volcanic activity resta ...

, the highest volcano in the world which operates at below-zero temperatures from a height of above sea level. FreeWave M2M devices capture early-warning signs that an eruption is imminent and transmit images from the top of the volcano. With hundreds of thousands of residents living around the volcano, early warning is crucial to take precautionary measures and evacuate citizens before an eruption can take place. The Geophysical Institute of Peru also uses FreeWave technology to capture and transmit sensor data across a line-of-sight path of up to at 115 kbit/s or up to at 1 Mbit/s. At an elevation of more than , the

Mount Washington Observatory The Mount Washington Observatory (MWObs) is a private, non-profit scientific and educational institution organized under the laws of the state of New Hampshire. The weather observation station is located on the summit of Mount Washington in Ne ...

(MWO) in

New Hampshire New Hampshire is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

uses a FreeWave solution to capture data from six weather stations and transmit the data to an Ethernet-connected gateway. The data provides information such as temperature and wind speeds for MWO's climate research. Weather observations are reported to the

National Weather Service The National Weather Service (NWS) is an Government agency, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weathe ...

and

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...

for use in nationwide and global forecasting models. The operator of a Rocky Mountain-based livestock facility implemented a secure ZumLink IQ edge solution with a custom application to monitor water levels in remote tanks from the cloud via an Internet connection. Using the

Node-RED Node-RED is a flow-based programming, flow-based development tool for visual programming language, visual programming developed originally by IBM for wiring together hardware devices, Application programming interface, APIs and online services as ...

programming language, an app was created quickly and easily to gather data from analog sensors. The solution helps drive down operating costs by reducing the amount of travel for visual inspections in the event of a problem such as a leakage that prevents a tank from filling. The Sangamon Valley Public Water District (SVPWD) in

Mahomet, Illinois Mahomet () is a village in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 9,434 at the 2020 census. Mahomet is located approximately 10 miles northwest of Champaign at the junction of Interstate 74 and IL 47. Geography Mahomet is ...

, implemented FreeWave radios in a new SCADA system to communicate with remote wells and control equipment and settings from a central location rather than sending personnel to collect data and monitor the water system. SVPWD reported 50 percent cost savings, with savings expected to rise as leaks and inefficiencies are detected and corrected. When strapped to a drone, FreeWave's technology can monitor remote environments and detect such issues as thermal fluctuations and fallen power lines in real-time. Then the radios can relay information to such parties as fire departments, insurance and telephone companies, and dispatchers.

Technology

FreeWave's product platform includes edge connectivity and computing technologies designed to support a variety of network infrastructure, communication, and application requirements. Available models operate in the 900 MHz, and

2.4 GHz The ISM radio bands are portions of the radio spectrum reserved internationally for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) purposes, excluding applications in telecommunications. Examples of applications for the use of radio frequency (RF) ener ...

radio frequencies; support point-to-point (PTP) and point-to-multipoint (PTMP) configurations; utilize secure

Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum Frequency-hopping spread spectrum (FHSS) is a method of transmitting radio signals by rapidly changing the carrier frequency among many distinct frequencies occupying a large spectral band. The changes are controlled by a code known to both tra ...

(FHSS); and communicate via multi-protocol

Serial communication In telecommunication and data transmission, serial communication is the process of sending data one bit at a time, sequentially, over a communication channel or computer bus. This is in contrast to parallel communication, where several bits are ...

and

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

. Systems operate in temperatures from -40^o C to +75^o C (-40^o F to +167^o F). Interfaces supported include

RS-232 In telecommunications, RS-232 or Recommended Standard 232 is a standard originally introduced in 1960 for serial communication transmission of data. It formally defines signals connecting between a ''DTE'' (''data terminal equipment'') such a ...

, RS-422, RS-485, and TTL. Models are available with 128/256-bit AES encryption and C1D2 certification. FreeWave's IQ Application Environment is available on its products, providing the ability to program, deploy, and run applications in any

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

-compatible language.

Products

FreeWave offers products that include a module, board-level, and enclosed radios for OEM and industrial end-user connectivity and computing applications.

References

External links